2014 In Review

by Clint

2014 flew faster than any other year thus far. This sounds repetitive, but obviously it's true. That's probably why we chose "Mindfulness" as our motto for 2015. Through mindfulness, we are trying to embrace each day and try to enjoy each minute more fully. We grew stronger as a family in 2014 and enjoyed a lot of great times. We only had a few speed bumps and one major surprise, our 4th son.

The year started like most with our annual New Years Day hike. We chose Lake McMurtury in 2014. This is a great way to get the year started. The early spring went on with not much surprise. We enjoyed having Jack around in February. Spring Break took us to the Wichitas which was a great trip. The boys loved it. They talk about wanting to go back. The big event in April was Diana's birthday and the reminder that she is doing well. Diana had a great 2014 full of recovery. We also bought a minivan in April. May was happy and full of sun. For the first and last time, Grammy, Grandpa, and I were present at graduation as faculty members. 2014 saw Grammy's retirement and the end of a big chapter in OSU's history. Grammy served as a professor for 39 years at OSU, building a strong career and lasting legacy of students. We had a big party for her at our house in May, and Adam and Carolyn came in. The highlight of June was PetroPhase in Galveston. The kids loved it. We road tripped to Galveston and enjoyed several days at the San Luis Resort. The Sawyer/Dad breakfast and ocean swim was particularly memorable. We went by our old house on the way to visit the Kemners. We had a great time seeing the Kemners and enjoying all the things we enjoyed about Houston. This was a great trip complete with El Tiempo, Johnson Space Center, and the Ocean. Shortly after Galveston, we were off to Colorado for another great adventure. We lost Negra Modelo, but we got The Gambler in her place. The fall was insane with trips, deadlines, and soccer. We over-committed and learned of our new blessing coming in April 2015. Highlights in the fall include soccer, a lot of backgammon games, and hikes at Lake McMurtury. Fall quickly sped away into Thanksgiving and Christmas. Before the end of 2014, Beau taught himself to ride his bike without training wheels. 2014 blessed us all in tremendous ways, and we look forward to the many blessings in 2015.

2014 Top 10
10. Boxcar Children Books
9. Sawyer climbing the slide at the cabin
8. Passing final inspection on the cabin
7. Backgammon with the boys
6. Paul's happiness
5. Minivan
4. Wichita trip
3. Beach trip
2. Colorado trip
1. Our new baby

New Years Eve 2014

by Clint

New Year's Eve was very low key.  We played games in the morning. We went bowling with the Ramseys. In the spirit of our sandwich tradition, we grilled hamburgers. Grammy and Grandpa drove home from Roswell and came over as they drove into town. We played some more games with Grammy and Grandpa.  Then Melanie and I worked on the blog. It was a great ending to a great year.

December 2014

Here are some random pictures from December.  Clint finally got his truck!  He loves it.

We had family clean out the cars day.  The kids were a big help.

Sawyer had to get some blood work done.  He was pretty scared of the experience and tramatized.  Afterwards Clint took him to IHOP (Sawyer's favorite foods are hamburgers and pancakes).  He immediately sat down and drew a picture of getting blood on his kid's menu.  Art therapy?

Sawyer became a backgammon pro over the break.  Beau's not too bad himself.

 One morning I gave the boys a bottle of vinegar and a box of baking soda.  They had a blast and I was so impressed with all the experiments they came up with all on their own.

Grammy and Grandpa gave the boys geodes for Christmas.  We took them to the farm one day and broke them up.

On that particular day, Sawyer and Beau decided they were going to go on their own hike.  They packed their own lunch in a backpack and hiked by themselves for about an hour.  Here they are eating their lunch on dinosaur mountain.  I snapped this picture from across the pond.

The boys and I went bowling the day after Christmas.  Clint was going to go, but suddenly got so sick I had to turn around and take him home.  He had some random virus, but was better the next day.

Beau's Training Wheels

by Clint

On December 28, 2014, Beau taught himself how to ride his bike without training wheels. I removed Beau's training wheels then proceeded to put lights on their bikes while Beau was riding his scooter. Beau suddenly said, "Hey Dad, I can ride my bike!" I looked up, and sure enough, Beau was riding his bike without training wheels. He had picked up his bike and got started all by himself without my help. It was incredible, and it was so funny how he just thought it was no big deal. He could ride down the driveway, around the street, and he could even ride up the driveway with no help. I went in and got Sawyer and Mom so they could see him in action. It all happened just like we probably would have guessed. When Beau sets his mind to something, he can do it really well with minimal effort. He decided that he was going to ride his bike and he did it perfectly. He was perfectly natural. The next day, we took him to Boomer Lake so he could get more practice. Mom was a little worried that he might have trouble on the path with other runners and bikers. Fear not, Beau rode perfectly! He stopped for other people, handled the turns, and stopped when he needed to. We're so happy for Beau! We're so proud he could teach himself to ride a bike at 4 years and 1 month!  I will miss him on the back of the big bike, but we'll have plenty of bike rides together.

Sawyer reads!

Christmas break, 2014.  Sawyer reads his first book, cover to cover, completely by himself.  The chosen literary work:  Green Eggs and Ham, by Dr. Seuss.

Christmas 2014

Christmas Eve was a nice slow day at home.  Sawyer, Beau and Clint went mountain biking, and I got food and things together.  We went to Grammy and Grandpa's for a Christmas Eve party.  Grammy outdid herself with the appetizers.  The boys got to open gifts and they were thrilled.  Paul had a fever and felt horrible.  The poor child was pathetic.  We came home and the boys were a breeze to get into bed (very eager for Santa to come).  Before bedtime though Sawyer was very careful to leave out cookies, milk, carrots, and reindeer food in the yard.

Sawyer was the first up Christmas morning.  Beau, Paul and I didn't sleep very well because the two little boys were dealing with ear infections.  Sawyer immediately saw his popper and then his puppy in his stocking.  The child has so much self control and came and got me to ask if he could get his puppy out of his stocking.  Paul was in bed with us and went with him and came back to bed with ''Ralph'' (he came up with the name himself), his own puppy.  We waited until Beau woke up then we had stockings.

After stockings we ate breakfast and cleaned up from the morning.  At this point Paul needed a nap.  The rest of us read the nativity story and opened the gifts under the tree and played.  The boys were in heaven with their gifts.

Grammy and Grandpa showed up later in the afternoon for a steak dinner and brought more gifts!  They nailed it.  The boys loved every present they brought and the evening was full of hysterical laughter and squeals of delight.  It really was a sweet magical day for us all.

 

Doug made me a custom laundry hamper for our laundry room.  It has been life changing!  Definitely my favorite Christmas gift this year (totally shows what stage of life I am in when I get excited over a laundry hamper).

Christmas Events 2014

The month of December was busy, but not too busy.  I had decided that I was not going to bake this Christmas and it was a great decision.  The boys and I made a few treats together and they loved it, but it wasn't too much for three small little boys.  We also did not watch as many Christmas movies as usual because the boys are on a huge board game kick right now.  There was nothing more special than lighting the fire, sitting in front of the tree, and playing board games.  Clint even rearranged furniture and moved in a table specifically for games.  Memory was the most popular, and Beau can beat us all.

We participated in Operation Shoebox.  Beau did not understand that the shoebox was not for him and that caused an embarrassing moment.  We threw a Christmas party for our neighbor friends with Christmas themed after school snacks, cookie decorating, and other crafts.  We had an outing to get Orange Leaf and a nutcracker for each of the boys.  They love going to Hobby Lobby over the holidays.  We also got eggnog ice cream and took it to the park one very cold Saturday morning.  We drove around looking at lights and found some amazing displays.  We visited GG and brought her lunch.

Clint bought the "cashanova" suit for Christmas celebrations.  Hah!

The boys love their nutcrackers.  Paul especially loved to stack them as high as he could like blocks.

We went to Arkansas to celebrate Christmas the weekend before.  We learned our lesson though and are going to have to celebrate with my side of the family afterwards from now on.  The kids just all traded germs and everyone ended up sick.  But we went to Golden Coral for brunch (it is the kids favorite), then my mom had rented Boingo Bounce for two hours.  We had snacks and Christmas cookies at Boingo Bounce.  After the "kid party" we went back to my parents for visiting and a nice cajun dinner.  It was a great day.

Sawyer's Art Award

Sawyer loves to create art.  His favorite is to draw, but he loves any craft.  We made the boys a crafting/art station in the office and Sawyer spends a lot of time there.  This year we encouraged him to submit a drawing to the PTA Reflections Art Competition.  He really wanted to, but for some reason dragged his feet (he was going through a ''I don't want to do anything my parents want to do'' grumpy phase).  At the last minute he finally put together a picture, but definitely not his best.

When the award ceremony came around we attended.  We found his drawing hanging up in the atrium and saw that he won an honorable mention award.  We then moved to the auditorium.  Clint's boss's boss's wife was the coordinator.  She knows Clint.  All 165 entries got recognized, a certificate or award, to come on stage, and shake a bunch of peoples hands.  We waited and waited but they never called Sawyer's name.  She completely missed his name.  He was so deflated that he didn't get called or get to go on stage.  Of course I pointed out this mistake after the awards ceremony (very nicely though I was fuming because like I said I was addressing the issue with Clint's boss's boss's wife) and made sure he got to go on stage, but it wasn't the same.  It is also important to point out that Sawyer had been going through a very melancholy stage and this did not help the situation.

Clint and I decided we would make it a big deal and let him pick a reward.  I suggested the typical, ice cream, movie night, . . . but he chose going to the antique mall and buying this golden shovel he spotted there 6 months previous.  He had never mentioned it before but he remembered.  Now the antique mall is really just a giant junk store (like 10,000 sq ft).  It is so crammed with stuff and it is just room after room of junk.  But he remembered exactly where it was and it was still there! And it was only $3.99! (I was secretly scared to death it would be out of our price range).  And the golden shovel did seem to make everything better.

Family Pictures

For our family picture for the Christmas card this year, we just had Rachelle snap a picture after church of our family and I snapped a picture of her family in our back yards.  It was pretty easy.

November Update

 I didn't have many pictures from November, but here are just a few.